10 Ways Software-Defined Networking Will Change IT

When networking professionals converge upon New York for Interop this week, software-defined networking (SDN) stands to establish itself as a major theme throughout session talks and informal conversations. As the industry watches the results of early adopter case studies and hears pundits advocate for this new means of controlling the network fabric, consensus is building for the potential that SDN could be an IT game-changer. Here's how, in the words of experts from around the industry.

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SDN Will Drive Network Programmability

One of key value propositions of SDN is the network abstraction that in turn allows for the kind of network programmability that accelerates automation.

"If network capabilities could be properly abstracted, IT administrators could design networks and define policies in IT-centric and application-friendly terms," said Houman Modarres of Nuage Networks. "Once designed, they could apply them many times, and enforce appropriate policies throughout their datacenter assets."

SDN does just that by instantiating connectivity in line with policies, he said.

"SDN provides the foundation for services chaining, a method of programmatically linking networking functions as they are needed, allowing developers to incorporate networking functions directly into applications," said Riley of Riverbed.

Ericka Chickowski specializes in coverage of information technology and business innovation. She has focused on information security for the better part of a decade and regularly writes about the security industry as a contributor to Dark Reading. View Full Bio

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